


Words

by Stonehill



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bonding, F/M, Subtle Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21661375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonehill/pseuds/Stonehill
Summary: Sometimes he’ll draw circles into her skin.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	Words

Sometimes he’ll draw circles into her skin.

In the midst of battle. When the TARDIS is acting up. When she has to cook for her family or when she’s anxiously trying to grade papers.

When they’re sitting in the library or sharing hot chocolate outside of time.

At first she thinks the motion is soothing; is a way to calm her down, or to remind him of her existence. The words _beautiful fragile human skin_ flitter through her mind in those moments, unbidden and unspoken. And Clara wonders if she has an inferiority complex.

Then she comes across the gallifreyan section of the library. At first she thinks it is just complex math equations for the TARDIS, but when she shuffles through a book of unknowns, the text flickers briefly as if she’s being bullied; as if the TARDIS is reminding her of a language that whispers only in echoes and mysteries.

And soon she’s tracing her fingers over familiar circles, circles traced into her skin.

Not soothing motions.

Words.

“What are you writing?” she murmurs the next time he does it.

They are sitting in the TARDIS, at the ends of a long day, somewhere between one sun and another. The room they’re in is a familiar one; an illusion of space as it looks outside the ship. Infinite constellations, galaxies and systems she does not know the names of. Yet.

Everything is calm for once.

Even the Doctor, who is usually always in motion, has only his eyes on the stars. And only his fingers trace patterns over her skin.

He leans closer, teeth flashing over a bare shoulder.

Clara thinks he’s laughing.

“Caught on have you?”

She smiles at the pride in his voice. “Can’t keep everything from me, space-man.”

“I know,” he murmurs. “Too clever.”

For a while he says nothing. Explains nothing. Simply leans against her, his fingers always moving, up and down her arm.

“To you it would sound like a lullaby,” he says, when he finally speaks, words nothing more than a whisper, a breath against her ear.

Clara does her best not to shiver.

She closes her eyes. Breathes. Just breathes.

She wonders if her little trick will keep working if she has to do it four times a day.

“The humans I know who have heard Gallifreyan spoken aloud all said it sounded like song,” the Doctor continues, as if he doesn’t notice. As if there is nothing to interrupt him or hurry him along. Calm and continuous like water in a stream. Like time.

Only time doesn’t laugh.

“And to you?”

She looks up at him. Up, up, up. He towers even when they are sitting like this, calm and intimate. Up at his ridiculous chin, and his straight nose, and his eyes. She wants to continue up to his fragile eyebrows, maybe brush away the hair that covers his expression too often. But she gets stuck there, stuck in old age and older mischief; in curiosity that refuses to let her go.

It’s not the first time she’s felt the urge, flashing through her and almost unstoppable in its force, to reach up and kiss him.

But Clara knows this is not their relationship, and she knows it is not what he wants.

It is not what he asks of her.

So it stunsher, makes her maybe a little emotional, when he reaches out to her. His fingers thread through her hair, careful and gentle, and yet so present, pulling her forwards so he can kiss her forehead.

“Secrets,” is all he murmurs against her skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing since I absolutely adore these two and wish we'd gotten more than eleven (ha) episodes
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
